AN: And now, the action!

Chapter 3 - Shaken Legend


The sound of the unsuppressed supersonic fire was deafening in comparison to the ambient noise that the Courier had become accustomed to during his wandering since his arrival. Even with the guaiclaws' constant howling and snarling, the loud retort of the ZM LE-300 bursts drowned out any other sound. If the Courier had not worn his helmet, even he would likely have found the noise uncomfortably loud.

Three bursts of 5.56 hollowpoint rounds struck the three lead guaiclaws in their torso (Perk: Center of Mass). The impact left gaping wounds in the creatures who instantly collapsed their momentum carrying them another meter forward, blood pouring from the massive rends in their flesh. Gallons of blood spilled before they started to disintegrate.

Once the Courier had stepped out of concealment, all the guaiclaws had simultaneously turned to face him, and charged into his gunfire with total disregard for self preservation.

The Lone Wanderer's gun fired with no perceptible delay between bursts. A guaiclaw fell with each burst, yet the beasts charged over the bodies of their fellows into the hail of bullets. Despite the amount of guaiclaws he gunned down, they were steadily gained ground towards him. The ground was painted crimson in their blood and the air was filled with the pink mist of destroyed tissue. While the quadstacked magazine he used meant that he could sustain fire for an extended period, he knew that he would have to reload soon, and that when he did, these things would close to melee range.

The amount of cadavers sublimating increased to the point that the Lone Courier was forced to switch his helmet to infrared vision in order to even see his foes. This momentary delay was all that the animals needed to close to melee range. However, the Courier was ready.

Reacting faster than one could see, he switched to his ballistic fist, and brought the ridiculously heavy weapon down onto the foremost creature's head and crushed its skull into a bloody pulp. The pressure plate on the gauntlet activated which triggered the three barrels (hydra config. WMX mod) to discharge their hyper-lethal projectiles. The slugs hit a guaiclaw behind the one initially targeted by the Lone Wanderer, creating mortal wounds in its chest and cracking its bone faceplate.

Now that only a few of these creatures were left, the Lone Courier decided to test the strength of these things. As the one closest to him swiped at him he braced himself and allowed the attack to connect. The claws of the guaiclaw did not even scratch the pauldron of the bulletproof elite riot gear. Still, it had a decent amount of kinetic force and did hurt, so he could not take hits forever.

After crushing his assailant's ribcage, the Lone Courier assessed his four remaining opponents. These creatures seemed larger and smarter than their more aggressive comrades. They circled the Courier, staying a significant distance out of the range of his fists. This proved to be a poor decision, as he simply drew A Light Shining in Darkness and placed a double tap into two of their heads. The other two saw the deaths of their fellows and initially started to slowly backed away before breaking into a full fledged run. This proved to be in vain as the Lone Wanderer simply sent another pair of .45 auto rounds through the back of each of their skulls as they fled.

As he saw no more heat signatures on his infrared, the Courier disabled it and switched back to his scoped M14.

As the adrenaline wore off, he drained a bottle of scotch, and examined the area. There was hardly any evidence that anything had happened here. Most of the corpses and blood were gone by now. Aside from the odd body, all that remained was some damage to the area from overpenetration, shell casings, and powder burns. He made sure to digitize his shell casings. If anyone was in the area, they would have certainly heard the fight. He therefore made sure to remove anything that could be used to identify him. Besides, he could use the casings to manufacture additional ammunition. If he was unable to find civilization, he would need to count his bullets to survive. However, he was not overly concerned as he had large reserves of most types of ammunition, so running out was not an imminent concern.

The Courier continued along the river as the last of the guaiclaws sublimated behind him, its particles drifting into the swiftly darkening sky. He no longer attempted to move particularly stealthily. If anyone was in the area, they would have certainly been alerted by the the unsuppressed gunfire and slaughter of a few moments ago. At this point, it was in the Lone Wanderer's best interest to simply create as much distance between the battleground and him as possible.

The sun set quickly as the Lone Courier continued to jog along the river. The sun soon disappeared behind the tall trees, leaving the sky a light pink color. The color gradually continued to darken until the he had to switch to night vision mode on his elite riot helmet in order to see properly. While he had superb unaided night vision, darkness still limited his line of sight, and with a scoped weapon that was a severe tactical hinderance.

The presence of these creatures concerned the Lone Wanderer. They were likely the explanation for the lack of previous encounters with wildlife. However, the guaiclaws did not seem dangerous enough to challenge a mutant like a centaur or deathclaw. The creatures were also clearly not around pre-war as there would surely have been records of this species.

In addition, the boney protrusions and mask did not appear natural, nor did they appear to be the result of radiation or the FEV. Both resulted in far less even changes. The sublimation that the guaiclaws underwent upon death was also unexplained. They also did not act like most animals would. The majority lacked the self preservation evolution should have beaten into them. They chose to attack even after having seen dozens of their brethren being gunned down. In his mind, these traits meant that they were probably engineered. Maybe a failed military experiment? It wouldn't surprise him. Governments had done stranger things pre-war. He supposed he should consider himself lucky; guaiclaws were a walk in the park compared to the other experiments he had dealt with. They were far weaker than Super-mutants and Deathclaws.

He wasn't sure how he would feel should he encounter either type of creature. On the one hand, it would be reassuring as they were familiar. On the other hand, Deathclaws and Super-mutants were dangerous even in power armor.

The origins of the guaiclaws were of greater interest to him due to the unique qualities they exhibited.

The Courier was primarily interested in how the sublimation occurred. It seemed that shortly after death both the body and blood would become an invisible gas that was lighter than air. Helium was the most likely candidate. Methane or hydrogen would have ignited. Flammable gases don't mix well with firefights. How a living creature became helium upon death was a mystery to him, as did the question as to why someone would design these things to sublimate in the first place. The only thing he could think of was for the purpose of deniability. No bodies, no evidence. But, the beasts weren't exactly subtle.

In the end, the Lone Courier figured that he would simply have to hope to find a proper explanation once he reached civilization. Speculating about how's and why's was of no use to him.

Eventually, the Courier realized that he should stop to sleep for a while. It wasn't strictly necessary, but being as he was in no hurry and no danger, it was a luxury he could afford. In order to do this, knew that he would need a location that would shelter him from both observation, and attention from the local wildlife. "Guaiclaw" was not his preferred method of awakening. He doubted it was anyone's.

The terrain had maintained a consistent elevation with only minor variations along the river, offering no location for him to set up a conventional shelter. Eventually, he concluded that he would need to find an alternate location; the terrain gave no indication of changing. This left him with limited options, the most viable solution being to find a tree to rest in.

Elevation would provide him with concealment and ensure that should any of the local fauna attempt to eat him he would wake before they got to him. However, due to his increased weight (as a result of him being practically a walking armory) he would first need to find a tree that was strong enough to hold his weight.

Fortunately, this proved not to be overly difficult as the trees that grew along the river were stronger and larger than most of the others that he had seen in the forest. Thus he had found a suitable one after only a few minutes of searching.

After scrambling up the tree with the agility of someone who could walk on water, the Lone Courier found a bough sturdy enough to hold his weight and sat down for a long night.

Rather suddenly, he saw something that caused him to panic. Him, the Legendary Courier Six, the Messianic Lone Wanderer, angel of the abyss and bringer of the apocalypse was panicking. One would wonder at what would cause such a normally stoic individual to panic. The answer to that was currently shattered into lots of pieces of varying sizes.

The Courier's first coherent thought (after a series of incoherent "what?"'s and "how?"'s) was:

"What the FUCK happened to the moon?!"

Roughly two thirds of the moon was shattered into countless tiny pieces. Worse still, he could only think a few ways that it might have occurred, and all of them involved aliens or super weapons or both.

Immediately he set about rationalizing this revelation to himself in a way that would not cause him to have a mental breakdown. Right. He knew that the moon was not shattered before he tested the Transportalponder MK. II. Therefore, it seemed that some time had passed from when he had disappeared from the old train station to when he had first arrived in this lush forest. It was mid morning when he left and based on the position of the sun, it was late afternoon when he had arrived. The transit time was incalculable. He could have been gone for six hours or ten million years. He worried that the lack of satellite connection was a result of the destruction of the moon, or worse, the decay of time. He took some small comfort in the fact the debris had not yet spread out throughout the moon's orbit, indicating that its shattering was a recent event. The conclusion that he had come to was that it was probably the result of a battle with the Zetans and thus resolved to check up on Mothership Zeta as soon as he got back. And so the Lone Courier fell into a deep sleep, tormented by the gory sight of those he had killed and those he had let die, all under a shattered moon.


AN: Well, that's that chapter done. Here is the first real combat that I have written. I'm not really sure what to think of it, but I would appreciate some feedback on the subject. The backstory of the Lone Courier as well as his personality will be revealed upon his actual interactions with people.